Israel’s largest defence contractor<\/a>\u00a0reveal the scale of military cooperation that developed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates after the 2020 Abraham Accords, including proposals for billions of dollars in drones, surveillance technology and electronic warfare systems following the Houthi attack on Abu Dhabi in 2022.<\/p>\nThe documents, seen by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, detail how Elbit Systems responded to an “urgent operational request” from the UAE in the weeks after Houthi missiles and drones struck Abu Dhabi on 17 January 2022, killing three people and exposing vulnerabilities in the Gulf state’s air defences.<\/p>\n
According to the leaked files, Elbit proposed supplying the Emirati military with advanced Hermes 900 unmanned aerial systems equipped with electro-optical surveillance payloads, wide-area monitoring technology, electronic intelligence capabilities and electronic warfare systems designed to detect and disrupt hostile communications.<\/p>\n
The initial proposal reportedly envisaged two Hermes 900 systems comprising six drones, alongside ground control stations and supporting intelligence equipment, at an estimated cost of around $180 million. The documents suggest Emirati officials later explored dramatically expanding the purchase to 15 systems containing 45 drones, potentially increasing the value of the deal to roughly $1.3 billion.<\/p>\n
The leaked material also showed that Israel’s Defence Ministry was preparing to send a delegation to the UAE in March 2022 to discuss joint air defence projects, while Elbit promoted the drones as a platform capable of monitoring threats far beyond the UAE’s borders, detecting incoming missile and drone launches, and carrying out domestic security missions.<\/p>\n
Among the documents cited was a confidential Emirati “wish list”, requesting four specialised intelligence aircraft equipped with signals intelligence, communications interception, cyber warfare and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as advanced visual reconnaissance systems. The report noted, however, that it remains unclear whether such a deal was ultimately concluded.<\/p>\n
The documents also refer to a separate project codenamed “Jasmine 3”, which called for the production of 6,000 unspecified kits over a three-month period. Haaretz said the project may relate to Elbit’s precision-guided munitions technology, which converts conventional bombs into GPS or laser-guided weapons, although the leaked files do not explicitly identify the equipment.<\/p>\n
Another document reportedly shows Elbit offering the UAE its Hermes 650 drone in March 2023, nearly a year before the aircraft was publicly unveiled at the Singapore Airshow. The proposal included the possibility of manufacturing some components inside the UAE, reflecting Abu Dhabi’s long-standing strategy of developing a domestic defence industry.<\/p>\n
Beyond the weapons proposals themselves, the report raises questions about information security practices inside Elbit.<\/p>\n
According to Haaretz, senior executives, including chief executive Bezhalel Machlis and several deputies, allegedly exchanged sensitive commercial documents through personal email accounts rather than the company’s internal systems.<\/p>\n
The newspaper said the documents were leaked from one executive’s personal Gmail account before later being published by a hacking group linked to Iranian intelligence.<\/p>\n
The report links the leaked documents to the broader expansion of Israeli-Emirati security cooperation since the signing of the Abraham Accords, arguing that military ties have deepened steadily as both countries increasingly aligned against shared regional security threats, particularly Iran and its allies.<\/p>\n
The revelations come days after The Wall Street Journal reported that the UAE, like Israel, had privately urged US President Donald Trump to take a tougher military approach towards Iran, even as other Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, pressed Washington to hold off on new strikes and pursue diplomacy with Tehran.<\/p>\n
Elbit’s only previously disclosed defence contract with the UAE was announced in January 2022, when the company revealed a $50 million agreement to provide missile protection systems for five Emirati aerial refuelling aircraft.<\/p>\n
The company also announced a separate $2.3 billion contract with an unnamed international customer last November, with French defence publication Intelligence Online later identifying the UAE as the likely client.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan [R] speaks during the Abraham Accords signing ceremony at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[5291,10885,66214,37,709],"class_list":["post-235107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-abraham-accords","tag-elbit-systems","tag-gulf-israel-ties","tag-israel","tag-uae"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117036271822274705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}